Subnautica: Pretty game to dive right into

Imagine yourself bolting into an escape pod as your starship crashes down. You eject, only to watch as your pod begins to take damage as you descend. You fall for a few seconds, and then, darkness.

You awake to find the small craft burning. You desperately try to remove your safety harness, and when it finally lifts, you take a lung full of smoke from the fire. You grab the extinguisher and get to work.

This is the start of Subnautica, a craft-and-survive game from Unknown Worlds Entertainment.

It's currently in early access on Steam but already quite a capable game in its own right, with both recent and overall ratings being very positive in the Steam store.

In Subnautica you play the apparently sole survivor of a large starship's crash landing in an ocean on an unknown planet.

You have limited resources but some very fancy tech available to you, letting you turn the various rocks, corals, fish, and wreckage you find into everything from food to air tanks to electronics to vehicle bays.

Like with Astroneer, you might find yourself seeking out a guide on Youtube or on the Steam forums when setting out as it's not always apparent what you're supposed to do next, and trial and error will have you playing for a long time before you see any real results.

Knowing that you should really start with crafting a pair of fins and two air tanks is one thing, knowing where to find the resources required is another, and the game isn't always helpful in letting you know how to accomplish what you're aiming for.

The interface is, thanks to having been out for much longer, better than Astroneer's, and rarely gets in the way.

The controls, on the other hand, seem to buck some of the conventions found in more mainstream games, with left and right mouse click sometimes being used for counter-intuitive things.

Thankfully the controls are well signposted, and the game will usually have contextual help for what you're able to do with the tools you have.

Subnautica is exceedingly pretty, even on older rigs.

Swimming through the shallows and watching the colourful tropical fish dart around you while bioluminescent pods glow on towers of kelp is a treat that doesn't fade quickly.

The sleek lines of the vehicles you can craft and the impressive architecture of the bases you can build make the game visually rewarding.

Overall, Subnautica is worth the purchase for those who enjoy the genre, even with the occasional performance issues that come with early access.